Wolfram Alpha : Google Wannabe With A Difference?

A brand new search engine called Wolfram Alpha could become as important as Google itself according to search professionals who have had access to the online service.

Wolfram Alpha, which calls itself a computational knowledge engine, is set to launch in May 2009 and has made early access available for a select few as part of its beta programme.

The service is the brainchild of Stephen Wolfram, a British scientist who is best known for coming up with theory that likens the universe to a logical system that looks like a computer program.

The aim of the project according to Wolfram is to make expert knowledge accessible to anyone, anywhere and anytime and points to the fact that the search engine will find answers on the fly, often pulling live feeds like share prices and weather updates.

Furthermore, Wolfram Alpha will be able, according to its creator, to solve complicated questions as well as mathematical equations and more. Intriguingly, Google released a sneak preview of a new feature that allows complex data to be queried easily.

The new feature, which follows, Google's acquisition of Trendanalyzer two years ago, is currently only limited to the unemployment rate in the UK, based on data collated from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics.

Google made life difficult for any startup which wanted to challenge it by its sheer presence. Cuil and many others before Wolfram Alpha tried to challenge the undisputed king of search but it is very, very unlikely that they will ever come up with anything else then some mere interesting features. Google, whose brand just reached $100 billion according to Clickz, is way too big to fall.